Crypto and protest: The Kazakhstan issue reveals Bitcoin’s susceptibility

<p>The situation in Kazakhstan has had a significant impact on the value of cryptocurrencies.</p> <p>On the morning of January 7, the Bitcoin price continued to decline. The price of the world's most popular cryptocurrency plunged by 8% to below $42,000, while altcoins also suffered losses. A considerable fall in the hash rate — the entire computational power of mining equipment — was observed in pools popular with Kazakhstanis. 1THash, OKExPool, and KuCoinPool were also impacted, while larger pools such as F2Pool, AntPool, and ViaBTC saw a drop in performance.</p> <p>Bitcoin's decline has been directly linked by experts to Kazakhstan's lack of internet access. On January 7, Kazakhstanis awoke to the news of internet suspension as anti-government rallies shook the country.</p> <p>According to Nikita Zuborev, senior analyst at the Bestchange.ru project, the situation in Kazakhstan is more of a trigger for the pricing phenomena than a cause.</p> <p>"It would be naive to suppose that what transpired will have no impact on the crypto market." "However, it is not worth exaggerating Kazakhstan's significance within the overall business," the researcher emphasises.</p> <p>According to him, Bitcoin prices fell mostly as a result of the global stock market's decline against the backdrop of a possible increase in the Federal Reserve's key rate in the spring.</p> <p>Miner's hideout</p> <p>According to an October analysis by the University of Cambridge Business School, Kazakhstan ranks second among countries where Bitcoin is mined. Its share is 18.1 percent, lagging the US, which accounts for 35.4 percent of worldwide output of the primary cryptocurrency. According to the experts' research, these countries' rankings jumped significantly during the year, owing to mining limitations in China.</p> <p>In September 2019, Chinese enterprises accounted for 75% of all crypto mining, but by the first half of 2021, that percentage had dropped to 46% since, on September 24, last year, the People's Bank of China imposed a compre